Life is Death’s Name Under the Mask of Redemption
by NoPerfectCircle
Summary: Child. Man. Vampire. Rebel. Protector. Lover. A reflective piece on Edward, and all the ways he changed in 105 years of existence.


**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended

**Summary: **_Child. Man. Vampire. Rebel. Protector. Lover.__A reflective piece on Edward, and all the ways he changed in 105 years of existence._

**Author's note:** This is just one of the numerous one shots I wrote. I hope you enjoy :) I wrote this months ago, so again, the end does not match Breaking Dawn canon :)

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**Life is Only Death's Name Under the Mask of Redemption.**

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When he was younger, people naively thought that Edward, as quiet as he was, was too young to understand the secrets adults often share when they think themselves unheard or misunderstood. But Edward, effortlessly smart at eight, had never been too young to understand.

As people talked around him, sharing secrets with each other, he discovered blasphemies he had never noticed before, depravations he had never suspected, sins people had committed. He observed people, aware of their darkness and in contrast, only more thankful for the perfection of his parents.

As a result from this observation, Edward did the only thing a child of that age could do.

He categorized people between the good people and the bad people. The ones who were pure, and the ones who weren't.

When his mind wrapped itself around this simple concept, Edward worked on understanding the motives behind the acts, behind the words. He learnt how to decipher the language of a body, and the emotions behind a gesture.

And in time, Edward knew these people and their horrors, their deepest secrets, and hated them for the way they tainted his own mind.

Edward was talented for lots of things, but he was sure that on top of being gifted with the piano, he was also a mind reader.

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When he got older and people stopped talking, he had learnt enough to know. People stopped talking _around_ him, because they started to talk _about _him.

His parents had stopped shielding him from society, but he had been years ahead, always years ahead, and he had grown used to people's pettiness, their superficiality. Edward didn't want any of this. He wanted to be someone, he wanted to do something.  
It burnt him inside that he would look at someone and guessed his plot, his feelings, his deepest fears by the way he would laugh and breathe. It burnt him that people were so fake, so easily corrupted. He wanted to be better than that.

He looked at people, judged them, but never said anything, observing from afar, his all knowing eyes on society. Right and wrong had never been so meaningful in his life.

And yet, he kept a perfect mask on. His mother had made him a true gentleman. His manners were spotless, his voice a perfect example of control, polite and yet with this edge of sharpness that made people respect him, and yet fear him.

Edward Cullen was talked about a lot in the society he despised, and that, despite his attempt to stay out of the spotlight.

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His transformation had changed it all. Suddenly, he was taken away from his parents, from the one place where he felt safe in his life, the one place that had been untouched by the world's deceptions.

Silence. That's what it had felt like when he had woken up. A deadly, cold silence.

Not even a heart beat.

And behind the silence, behind the unwelcoming coldness of the world around him, the hunger. He remembered being hungry for something. It was within him, not in his stomach, not in his mind. His whole body ached for it, and it was overpowering. Overpowering anything he had ever felt or thought until then.

And his first clear conclusion was that it couldn't be Heaven. This had to be Hell.

It wasn't until the young man, that he recognized as being the doctor that took care of him, came into the room, greeting him as if he had done something terrible, something so terrible that he had no illusion that he would ever really be forgiven, that Edward understood something was wrong.

This was not Hell, for he was not dead.

Edward had observed wrongness all his life, but at that precise moment, something triggered in him. No matter all the sins, no matter all the lies people committed, there was worse than being a sinner.

Edward was against nature, against religion, against everything that was right and wrong in this world.

He _was _a_ sin_.

And he was going to wander this earth forever without chance of redemption.

He was his worst nightmare.

********

With the years, Edward had followed his path, carrying with him the painful notion that he was an abomination, sucking blood to survive, cold in the outside and in the inside, dead, in more ways than one. Deprived of Heaven, and yet fighting for it even more than before.

One lapse had happened. A four year lapse. Barely two days in a human lifetime.

But he had killed.

That could hardly be called a lapse.

He had thought that as long as he was a sin, he should embrace it. Why should he fight for something that had rejected him? Why should he work on doing what was right when he was so wrong?

But something had always been missing, and whether it was his conscience, whether it was his need to believe in something, in something bigger than him, he had come back to Carlisle and Esme. He had made his apology, never wishing for forgiveness, and he had learnt all the ways someone can hate himself and live. All the ways someone can hope and not believe.

Conflicted. That's what he was, how he was, how he felt.

Until her. Until she came along.

********

Salvation, he thought, was not the Heaven destined to people who tried too hard to appear as saints. It was the Heaven reserved to people who were fundamentally good and pure, those who no matter the mistakes or the doubts had their hearts in the right place.

In his eyes, Bella deserved salvation. By extension, he didn't.

A child. A man. A vampire. A rebel.

In his mind, a lost soul. A worthless life.

Putting Bella before his own life, his own needs wasn't something he needed, or something terribly romantic. It was evidence.

She completed him, not in a corny way, not in a cheesy way, but on a deeper level, as if one piece of himself had been taken away when he was born and put in her for him to wait for.

She was the sparkle of hope that had been in the shadows for so long. She was the love he had for his family, the respect for his father, the tenderness for his mother, the fondness for his siblings. She was the tears he had never cried, and all the laughs he hadn't shared.

Maybe some people thought it was stupid, that he had his life perfectly attuned to hers, her breath becoming his purpose, her every step for him to watch, and stupid that he just couldn't live without her, but he wasn't about to throw that away.

Everyone needed a reason to be. For some, it was work. For some, it was love. For some others, it was their own strength.

But Bella Swan was Edward Cullen's work, strength and love. She was the essence of everything, and there was no reason why he should think this was stupid. Putting that much trust in one person wasn't reckless, it was a leap of faith, and he was ready to take it.

And as he was holding her in his arms that night, with only the sheet preventing his naked body to freeze hers, he knew she was his. She was his in front of God, she was his, emotionally, physically and he realized that there was nothing wrong with that, that there was nothing wrong with the feeling of belonging, and as the feeling was sinking in and he watched her sleep in his arms, for one of the last times, he did not fear, for this could only be Heaven.

God had made her his heaven, and she was willing to make it last forever. He might not have had a soul anymore, but he realized, that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't care about it.

She was his soul. And in time, he would understand, she was his redemption too.


End file.
